Is Tsunoda an improvement on Lawson? F1 Q&A

Max Verstappen won the Japanese Grand Prix for the fourth successive time as he fended off McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Formula 1 now heads to Bahrain for the second race of a triple-header, from 11-13 April.

Before that, BBC Sport F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions.

Why do drivers rate Suzuka as their favourite circuit when pole usually wins and there is very little chance of overtaking? Sunday's race was quite boring once Max Verstappen got to the first corner before Lando Norris. - Stuart

The two things - the concept of a favourite circuit and one where overtaking is very difficult and the racing therefore sometimes uneventful - are not mutually exclusive.

Just look at Monaco. The drivers love the challenge of the track, but accept the race is likely going to be processional. So too with Suzuka.

Some drivers did remark on the lack of action. But Fernando Alonso had a more nuanced take.

Alonso has won at both Monaco and Suzuka, and made one of his greatest - one of the greatest - overtaking moves there when he passed Michael Schumacher's Ferrari around the outside of 130R in 2005.

Alonso said: "This is Suzuka. I don't remember a race many times in the past where there is lots of overtaking without the weather changing.

"It seems every year we repeat always on Thursday how great Suzuka is, how great Monaco is, the glamour, the spectacular weekend, and then on Sunday we wake up and say: 'Ah, Monaco is boring, what can we do to the track? Suzuka is boring.'

"Instead of looking at the negative, I try to enjoy the experience, and it was another great Suzuka."

One thing is worth mentioning here. The resurfacing of the track in the first sector changed Suzuka this year from a circuit where tyre degradation was high, to one where it was low.

That changed the race from a two-stop strategy to a one. Add in the difficulty of overtaking to an event where there were no significant tyre-pace offsets developing, and the race was always likely to be processional.

This, though, led to a race that was driven pretty much flat out all the way by the drivers. And that - rare in the Pirelli era - they enjoy.

So just because it fell short as entertainment, as a challenge for the drivers, it was very real.

Max Verstappen - sensational all weekend on his way to victory - said: "It was a fun race. The whole race I saw two orange cars in my mirror and, especially those last 20 laps, we were pushing quite hard out there. You had to keep on fighting it, basically being on the limit."

On the limit for an hour and a half around the greatest circuit on the planet. No racing driver is ever going to find that boring.

Given the demotion to Racing Bulls for Liam Lawson, what are Jack Doohan's chances looking like at Alpine given that Franco Colapinto is a reserve driver? - Anjum

Well, the first thing to say is just because Red Bull demoted Lawson, that does not necessarily mean Alpine will do the same to Doohan.

On the surface, the Australian has had a traumatic start to the season. In three races so far, he has had two massive, expensive crashes. One when he spun in the wet in Australia, and one in Friday practice in Japan. Both were his errors.

Doohan was not the only driver to crash in the difficult wet conditions in Melbourne. Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz also did. And many more drivers spun or made mistakes.

And there were some significant mitigating circumstances in Suzuka.

Doohan's crash was caused by him entering Turn One with the DRS overtaking aid still open. So the car didn't have enough downforce to cope with the G-forces on it.

He had been doing the same in the simulator in preparation for the race, thinking the DRS was closing automatically. But with the small lift he had on this particular lap, it did not.

At the same time, given his inexperience, it perhaps would have been a good idea for the engineers to remind him of it.

Alpine, though, had not realised he had been doing this in the simulator.

Another mitigating factor was Doohan was under pressure to make up time because he had missed first practice while reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa was given an outing in his car.

Why did Alpine not put Hirakawa in team-mate Pierre Gasly's car for first practice given Doohan's lack of experience at Suzuka? They had a difficult weekend in China and wanted to evaluate some new set-up ideas, for which they felt they needed Gasly's experience.

Despite the two big accidents, Alpine feel Doohan has, on balance, had a positive start to the season, with some promising pace hidden by some unfortunate circumstances.

But he is certainly not safe yet.

Should they decide to replace him, Alpine have two reserve drivers who could potentially step up - Colapinto and Estonian Paul Aron.

Since signing Colapinto from Williams, following his cameo role in the final few races of last season, the theory has been the access to Latin American money the Argentine gives means Doohan is on borrowed time.

But that threat seems to have diminished for now, the funding perhaps more theoretical than real.

Ultimately, though, Doohan's fate rests on the whim of Alpine executive adviser Flavio Briatore. He'll decide what he decides, when he decides it.

Was Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull debut a success, and is he an improvement on Liam Lawson? - Ed

Tsunoda set himself the target of scoring points on debut at Red Bull, and finished the race 12th, behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso. So, by the standards he set himself, it was not a success.

Red Bull want Tsunoda to be scoring good points to boost their bid for the constructors' title. So by their standards, it was not a success either.

Having said that, it certainly showed promise.

He started off strongly, being close on pace to Max Verstappen in first practice, and was again looking decent in final practice.

In first qualifying, again he was only 0.1secs from Verstappen.

For second qualifying, Red Bull chose to give him one set of used tyres and one of new - not unusual for a quick driver in a quick car, but perhaps a mistake given his lack of experience with the team.

That meant he had only one realistic shot at getting into the top 10 shootout. And Tsunoda made an error on his only flying lap on new tyres, going into Turn One 15km/h faster than ever before, and having a moment.

His race was dictated by qualifying 14th, but he did overtake Lawson on lap one then pull off an undercut pass on Pierre Gasly's Alpine.

As for comparisons with Lawson before him, Tsunoda was a definite step up. He was faster than Lawson ever was, and looked a lot more in control and confident.

But he will have to do better than this in the future to have any chance of keeping a seat at Red Bull in 2026.

How likely is it that George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli will race for Mercedes in 2026, with both out of contract this year? – John

The answer to this question depends entirely upon Max Verstappen.

If the world champion decides to stay at Red Bull, Mercedes will keep Russell and Antonelli next year.

If he decides to move, Mercedes is his most likely option, in which case Toto Wolff would have to decide which driver to keep.

On performance right now, that would be Russell. But Antonelli is only 18, just three races into his career, and believed to have rich promise. Jettisoning him after a year would be harsh indeed.

In that scenario, Russell is likely to be an attractive candidate to Red Bull, too.

What will Verstappen do? For now, he is relaxed and waiting to see how the season develops. He is under contract to Red Bull until the end of 2028, but has performance-related get-out clauses if he wants to leave.

The difficulty in making any decision about the future is no-one is absolutely certain what next year and beyond will look like in terms of engines.

Mercedes are widely believed to be ahead on development of the new 2026 power-units. But their future is uncertain.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem is pushing for an early abandonment of the 2026 engine formula and a return to naturally aspirated V10s running on sustainable fuel. Why, he has yet to explain. But for now all that matters is he is.

That exact route looks unlikely to happen. Ferrari and Red Bull back the V10 idea, but it is not appealing to Mercedes, Honda or Audi - and that's more than enough manufacturers to vote that idea down under F1's rule structures.

But that does not mean a change won't come before 2031 - the current end of the new engine regs.

Perhaps manufacturers would agree to a different, bigger engine - a V8, for example - with a turbo and some hybrid element, but not as much as the 50% of total power planned for next year.

There is a meeting to discuss F1's future engine direction in Bahrain on Friday and no-one knows what the conclusion will be - or indeed if there will be one.

Verstappen will wait a little longer to see how things stand on many fronts before making any decision on his future.

Between a packed calendar, other commitments and strict regulations on costs, how much time do F1 drivers actually get to practise driving their cars during a season? Is it mostly simulator based? – Arv

In-season testing in current cars is forbidden by F1's regulations.

Drivers are allowed to test in cars that are more than a year old. This was unrestricted for a while, but has for 2025 been limited for current drivers to 1,000km a year.

Drivers can also participate in Pirelli tyre development tests in the latest cars, or whatever spec of car is required, if called upon.

Other than that, the only "practice" they get is in the simulator.

Whether the best drivers in the world need any practice in a year in which there are 24 grands prix is another question.